The protection of copper and silver ore resources in the Polish Lubuskie Province requires certain steps to be taken, the suggestions for which are presented in this article. It addresses both known and newly discovered ore deposits, as well as prospective areas and places of ongoing exploration, which throughout the paper are collectively recognized as potential Cu-Ag mining areas. The example of Lubuskie Province was chosen as an exceptional region with multiple known areas of copper and silver ore potential, but no active mining operations until now. The study focuses on the nature and location of all potential mining areas in Lubuskie Province, and subsequently suggests the means of their protection which can be implemented today, as well as in the future. Such means should be introduced by way of new or amended legal regulations. Certain major changes to Polish law are necessary to provide sufficient protection of both currently known, as well as possible future deposits, against such use of land which would prevent the extraction of their resources. The study shows that the legal regulations effective in Poland today are insufficient or too vague, as they do not include any provisions concerning prospective resources, as well as areas of active mineral exploration, instead focusing solely on officially registered mineral deposits. Therefore, the proposals of new solutions providing better protection of all potential Cu-Ag mining areas are presented in this article.

The Northern Copper Belt is located in south-western Poland, a region well known for its copper and silver occurrences of varying significance. This area also includes the abandoned mines of the North-Sudetic Trough (Old Copper District), as well as the currently active New Copper District in the southern part of the Fore- Sudetic Monocline. The vast exploration programme of Miedzi Copper Corp. initiated in 2011 in the northern, deeper part of the Fore Sudetic Monocline provided new data about the deeper parts of this geological unit, located north of the known deposits. A number of prospective areas with Cu-Ag mineralization were investigated, which ultimately resulted in the discovery of three new Cu-Ag deposits. Both the prospective areas and the documented deposits form the so-called Northern Copper Belt, which as a whole has high potential for the identification of new ore deposits and an increase in resources. A description of these three new deposits is provided along with characteristics of the areas of their possible extension, and the additional prospective areas with hypothetical and speculative resources. The new deposits are compared to other Polish Cu-Ag ore deposits, with an emphasis on differences in their geological structure and mineralogy. The paper also presents a brief summary of the applied new exploration tools which have led to this discovery.